10 wonderful years ago I married my sweetheart. It didn't take long before I realized things weren't quite right with his "system." After much prodding he went to a doctor. Tests were run and the conclusion was nothing was wrong. Throughout the years, I knew something was wrong, but my husband wanted to believe otherwise.
A few years down the road our 2nd child became very ill. He had terrible diarrhea, his stomache hurt, and he just felt terrible. We went to several doctors, and each would ask if anything ran in the family. I always replied, "My husband has the same thing but he won't go to a doctor!" We took him off milk, and it helped, but that didn't cut it. He was treated for giarrdia, parasites and told he had toddler diaarhea. After several years, many tests, scopes, and biopsies - he was diagnosed with Celiac disease. We sought help from other Celiacs and started with a basic flour mix, just hoping to survive.
After a short period of time my husband saw how much better our son was feeling and he FINALLY went to another doctor. Again, after bloodwork, scopes, biopsies, camera pills, etc., he was diagnosed with gluten intolerance and Chrones' disease.
When our oldest daughter was young she had terrible gas, we would just laugh and say she took after her father. When we would lift her up to wash her hands, she would complain her belly hurt from the pressure against the sink. We aren't very observant, and this is when her brother started to become very ill, so we forgot about her. As she got older, she was constantly suffering from headaches and yeast infections. She failed to tell us that her stomache hurt all the time but she could deal with it! That was it, she went gluten free(not willingly) and within a short period of time, not only her stomache/gas issues went away, but so did her headaches and yeast infections.
One by one we put our other children on the diet. To make a long story short, my family is all gluten free, we still do not know if our youngest 2 children are celiac, but whether they are or not, they get to live gluten free in our home. Eating gluten free has not only helped the issues we thought were caused by gluten, it has also given us stronger immune systems, no migrains, less body acne. Looking back it is easy to see how life has improved in so many ways.
With all of these gluten free people, I of course did the most research and studying because I had to feed my family. I decided the mix of flours I was using was not healthy, so I started experimenting with all the grains. We came up with a few grains that we preferred and I went to town in the kitchen. You have to realize that we all love to eat, mostly me, and starvation was not the answer. If I had to eat the food, then it was going to taste good. It was frustrating because any type of convenience food purchased at the health food store was anything but healthy. Everything seemed to be made out of pure starch. Other things were made out of rice, but that food was gritty and gross. I became frustrated with all the social events - school, birthdays, holidays, church, and even family events. I was always cooking. I just wished everything didn't revolve around food. I began making my own mixes to help save time. When time was short, I could quickly grab a mix, add a few ingredients and be done.
I hope to offer to everyone else out there, some shortcuts in cooking gluten free, along with good nutrition. I grind my own flours and use very minimal starch. I can truly say I have fallen in love with these grains and I hope you do too.
